14
The day before Christmas Eve,the office was quiet. Most of the supernatural world was already celebrating the solstice and holidays in their own ways. I was mechanically sorting through a stack of reports when Keanan appeared at my desk. He placed a large, flat, carefully wrapped package on the corner without a word, his stoic face offering no explanation.
I stared at it after he’d walked away. “What’s this?”
“A gift,” Sylas said from the doorway, not even looking up from his phone. “Try not to overthink it, kitty.”
I frowned but carefully unwrapped the package, revealing a large, ornate frame nestled beneath the paper. The wood was dark and richly grained, its surface carved with intricate, swirling patterns that echoed the natural spirals of sea foam and ocean currents.
“A frame makes a work complete,” Xavier said.
I hardly felt like an artist, though I’d been drawing and painting again. At home I had a dozen unfinished canvases and art books filled with sketches. Nothing nearfinished.
“It’s snowing,” Keanan said.
Xavier glanced out the window behind him, the lightning show of magic causing snowflakes to shimmer with iridescentrainbows. “Sometimes the most beautiful view is from a window.”
I followed their gaze out the window, surprised at how truly magical the city beyond looked with snow cascading around it in colorful waves. I almost wished I could open the window and stick my hand out to catch a flake, see if it really had color, or if it was a trick of the light. And then I thought I’d have loved to share the beauty with Skye, and instantly my mood sank. “Pretty.”
“Let me give you a ride home,” Sylas said, and since everyone was packing up early, I did too.
“Have a good holiday,” I said as we headed for the door, thoughts churning. The radio in Sylas’s car hummed carols, and snow fell on both sides of the Veil as lights twinkled. He dropped me off, and I made my way upstairs, surprised to find a mini-Christmas tree set up on the counter and a half-dozen wrapped presents with a note from my parents.
The note was written in my mother’s careful script:
We miss you. Christmas dinner is at four. No pressure. We’re just… glad you’re painting again. The paintings are so pretty.
I set the note down, my throat tight.
My gaze fell on the cove painting, so serene and yet incomplete. Xavier’s words echoed in the quiet apartment.“A frame makes a work complete.”
I could mount it in the frame. But it didn’tfeelcomplete. What else could I add?
“Sometimes the most beautiful view is from a window.”
A sudden energy buzzed in my veins, bright and electrified with purpose. I had an idea. Would it work?
I dug out the right shades of gray and white, recalling the lighthouse, a stark silhouette against the cove’s sky, burned perfectly behind my eyes. The inside could be anything, right? Or at least what I made of it.
I set the frame around the canvas first, then began to paint. Slowly, the carved wood border transformed into a weathered windowsill. I added a long, open edge to the window through the center of the cove, matching the frame. As if the glass had been pushed outward to welcome the sea breeze.
But as I stepped back, a cold dread prickled down my spine. The cliff face was too steep. My beautiful merman couldn’t scale that.
So, I painted a rope ladder, unraveling from the windowsill and spilling down into the canvas. I imagined the end I couldn’t see would dangle just above the cove’s gentle waves. An invitation. A plea.
If I could climb through the picture and leap into his arms right that moment, I would have. Instead, I took my time, analyzing every brushstroke for some sign of magic, of change. My heart raced—a wild, tangled knot of hope and terror. Was it enough? How was I even certain he was there at all?
Hope. It was all I had left, and I clung to it with all I had.
The clock flipped to midnight. And the work was ascompleteas I could make it. I hung the piece on the wall, the paint still gleaming faintly under the light. Exhaustion tugged heavily at my limbs, but my mind still hummed.
“Merry Christmas, Skye,” I whispered into the quiet dark, lying in bed with my eyes fixed on the window I’d painted and praying he’d climb through.
15
I woketo the scent of salt and ocean and the warm, solid weight of an arm draped over me. My eyes flew open, thinking for half a second I was back in the cove. But Skye was there.
Real. Solid. In my bed.
